all the king's horses, and all the king's men
by a.lakewood
Summary: Saving the world: Dean Winchester's burden.


Title: all the king's horses, and all the king's men  
Author: alakewood  
Warnings: General spoilers from _AHBL_ and Season 4 (specifically _Lazarus Rising_, _Are You There, God..._, and _I Know What You Did Last Summer_) through _On the Head of a Pin_.  
Rating: PG/PG-13-ish.  
Word Count: 1200+  
Summary: This was written in response to a monthly challenge at a community I'm involved in on Livejournal. The challenge was to take a familiar story (or myth, fable, fairytale, folktale, etc.) and make it our own. The nursery rhyme _Humpty Dumpty_ pretty much chose me, so you get this.  
Disclaimer: As I always, I own nothing. Also, two sections of dialogue are used verbatim from _Lazarus Rising_ and _On the Head of a Pin_.

**xXx**  
_When Sam died, Dean bargained his soul.  
Just one year to live was the toll.  
As much as Sam tried,  
the year didn't end well -  
Lilith had won, her hounds dragged Dean to Hell._  
**xXx**

Sam had thought that he would find something - _anything_ - that would save Dean. Had been as sure of that as he was of the existence of oxygen, the sun, of the good that would always triumph over evil.

And he'd been wrong.

He'd had his moments of doubt, but it wasn't until Dean recognized Lilith in Ruby's body that he knew there was no hope. He realized later just how delusional his belief had been - when the clock ticked down the last month, started on the last week - _that_ was when he should've started to get worried. _That's_ when he should've known. It shouldn't have gotten down to mere seconds before he realized he was running out of time.

He'd strung Dean along; let him believe Sam could save him. He'd failed Dean as a brother before, but never so irreparably.

And there wasn't a single thing he could do to fix it. Went to the crossroads and learned that Hell had gotten exactly what it wanted.

He was in a bad place then, traveling down a very dark road with a bottle of Jack as his only companion. Was in a kamikaze downward spiral with no bottom in sight.

Then Ruby came back.

"Lilith only let me out for one reason - she's scared," she'd told him. "There's an uprising going down. A war. There's a lot of talk. The demons are angry - Hell, they're downright _pissed_. Lilith promised them your head on a stake and, instead, they get _Dean_ Winchester."

Sam had shaken his head at that, making the room spin like a Tilt-a-Whirl. "'s what she wanted all along," he'd slurred. "Crossroads bastard said so."

"Demons lie, Sam."

"This one didn't." Then Sam chucked the nearly-empty bottle of Jack Daniels at the far wall of the condemned house he was squatting in, watched the glass shatter and the liquor spray, his rage dissipating as fast as it had come on and he was listless once more. "If I'd just killed Jake when I had the chance." He shook his head again. "If I could've been _half_ the man Dean was...he'd still be alive."

**xXx**  
_Forty years Dean spent in the pit.  
Never dreamed of escaping it.  
Freed by an angel -  
by God's divine word -  
'Stop the Apocalypse' was all that he heard._  
**xXx**

From the moment he'd woken up to find himself in a pine box, nothing had seemed believable, explainable - the very fact that he was breathing, that his heart was _beating_. He could feel the heat of the sun and the trickle of sweat down his back; the cloying scent of damp earth heavy in his nose.

It couldn't be real. How could it be real?

He'd felt the indescribable pain as the hellhounds tore at him, ripped and gouged and shredded. Felt the warmth of his blood as it flowed over undamaged skin to pool beneath his body. Saw the horror in Sam's eyes before he died.

There was no way any of this was real. This was just another way Hell was trying to break him. It wasn't enough for Alastair to tear him apart the same way the dogs did, not enough for him to take his time with surgical precision.

Alastair had already won - Dean climbed off the rack and picked up the blades, did some damage of his own. Felt his humanity slipping away with each cut, with each drop of blood spilled at his hands.

Yet, there was his heartbeat, strong and sure in his chest. A hollow thudding in his ears, like the tightly drawn head of a drum.

The chill of the water in the gas station as it slid past his lips and his sudden, unquenchable thirst; the deafening pitch of whatever had blown out the windows and the sharp edges of the glass as he climbed off the floor; seeing Bobby; seeing Sam. _Feeling_ Sam. He knew then that it was real. Knew he was really _alive_. That the beating of his heart wasn't an illusion. That, despite what he'd gone through in Hell, despite the torture he'd suffered and inflicted, he was whole.

But why? Why would he be brought back? And even more importantly: How? And by _what?_

The answers to those questions weren't easy to accept.

"Because God commanded it. Because we have work for you," Castiel - an _angel_ - had told him.

Research reaffirmed Castiel's claim and Dean had no choice but to believe in something he'd so easily dismissed in the past.

At first, the research didn't shed much light on the elusive 'why' part, but it was soon made clear that something was coming.

The apocalypse.

The Raising of the Witnesses was one of the seals. And, for some reason, it was Dean and Sam's duty to stop it all.

**xXx**  
_Dean wasn't the same as before;  
of this, Sam was def'nitely sure.  
Alastair laid blame  
Cas had confirmed it.  
Saving the world: Dean Winchester's burden._  
**xXx**

That last year slowly fractured Dean. Sam witnessed the cracks in his carefully constructed walls, watched pieces of the fortress crumble. Dean was already broken before he'd gone to Hell, but, at least then, he was still fighting. Fought right up 'til the end.

But Dean had come back worse than broken and after that mess with Alastair - he was absolutely defeated. Had given up the fight. Castiel _never_ should've asked Dean to torture Alastair, to relive what he'd gone through.

Sam listened from outside the door of Dean's hospital room, to the conversation between his brother and the angel. All the talk of Fate and Destiny. Dean was like Atlas, with the weight of the world resting on his shoulders. And Sam had helped to put it there. He couldn't let Dean down this time, he'd carry this burden with his brother.

"I can't do it, Cas. It's too big. Alastair was right, I'm not all here. I'm-I'm not-I'm not strong enough."

Sam's words from only a few short weeks ago echoed in his mind. Telling Dean he was weak, that he was holding Sam back... This was his doing, he had to fix it.

The room beyond the door went quiet and Sam went inside. Dean was alone. He looked up at Sam, shuddered out a breath and wiped at his face with his hands. "You were right," he said.

Sam shook his head. "I wasn't. I'm sorry."

Dean's chin quavered. "Doesn't matter. I can't do this. Not anymore." Another shaky, exhaled breath. "I'm sorry I let you down."

"You've never - not _once_, Dean. I...You don't have to do this alone."

"It's not your fight."

"You're my brother," Sam said, voice breaking. "We're in this together. _I'm_ sorry for making you doubt that. We'll fight this and we'll win. I won't let it end any other way."

**xXx**  
_The end of this tale still unclear  
with our hero broken by fear.  
None of the angels -  
and not even Sam -  
could put Dean back together again._  
**xXx**


End file.
